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Are there any biglaw patent guys here? The other posters seemed like they were in smaller firms. What kind of work should a patent guy expect right out of school (mainly pros or something else?) and what's a normal day look like? Thanks.

Anonymous User wrote:Wondering which middle market firms to target in Dallas that pay the 90K-110K range that would take an SMU kid that did fairly well. My grades are good but I'm not a good interviewer. Don't have high expectations for myself and know my budget. I am a complete workhorse so I don't mind doing bitch work or working long hours. Just wondering if all else fails what I could do to pay back my loans and work with good people. Any advice from people in the Dallas market greatly appreciated. Any advice from some pretentious T14 ass who thinks SMU can suck it can cordially move on because I am not insecure about my intelligence. I went to SMU not because it was the best school I could get into but because I love Dallas and my girlfriend is here.

F*ck me for misposting

What in the Christ? ^^^

Last edited by kellyfrost on Sat Jan 27, 2018 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Anonymous User wrote:Anyone interested in derivatives, from a biglaw perspective? Small practice area but super useful to have a taste of if you end up going in house.

I would be very interested in this, if you don't mind.

Background: NYC biglaw corporate associate who has dabbled with derivatives. It’s not a big practice area at our firm, and it’s not the only part of my job. We mainly to issuers/company/end-user side work, so the process might be a little different if you are representing one of the banks or a financial entity (especially in terms of onboarding).

Our objective is to create what is essentially a bilateral agreement between the company and the bank to cover the rules which will cover their swaps. Because every single company engages in derivatives and hedging, there is a master agreement (the 2002 Master ISDA Agreement, for those interested) that sets out the general terms of the arrangement (events of default, termination provisions, etc).

There is also a schedule to the ISDA that is negotiated; that’s where our work really comes in. Ideally, companies want their agreements to be the same between banks, to avoid gaps that create unnecessary risks. For most of our clients, we create a “Form Schedule” that they can give to the bank that they want to do swaps with. This is preferable to the bank giving their initial draft, which tends to have terms that heavily favor the bank. This negotiation goes back and forth, and could last a significant period of time depending on how low of a priority it is for the company. It is sort of shocking to note how little the lawyers at some of these companies know about these agreements; they tend to take a complete backseat to us and defer to our opinion.

And that is basically it. There are some other things you’ll need to look into, including Dodd-Frank and CFTC. For some reason, people tend to get scared at the word derivatives because they don’t really understand how it works. The agreements are pretty straightforward (compared to a Credit Agreement, at least), and after a while you know where to look. It’s an easy way to add value if you are ever considering going in house, and it’s never as time sensitive or hectic as some of the other corporate areas.

If you have any specific questions, let me know and I’ll shoot you a direct message.

Anonymous User wrote:Anyone interested in derivatives, from a biglaw perspective? Small practice area but super useful to have a taste of if you end up going in house.

I would be very interested in this, if you don't mind.

Background: NYC biglaw corporate associate who has dabbled with derivatives. It’s not a big practice area at our firm, and it’s not the only part of my job. We mainly to issuers/company/end-user side work, so the process might be a little different if you are representing one of the banks or a financial entity (especially in terms of onboarding).

Our objective is to create what is essentially a bilateral agreement between the company and the bank to cover the rules which will cover their swaps. Because every single company engages in derivatives and hedging, there is a master agreement (the 2002 Master ISDA Agreement, for those interested) that sets out the general terms of the arrangement (events of default, termination provisions, etc).

There is also a schedule to the ISDA that is negotiated; that’s where our work really comes in. Ideally, companies want their agreements to be the same between banks, to avoid gaps that create unnecessary risks. For most of our clients, we create a “Form Schedule” that they can give to the bank that they want to do swaps with. This is preferable to the bank giving their initial draft, which tends to have terms that heavily favor the bank. This negotiation goes back and forth, and could last a significant period of time depending on how low of a priority it is for the company. It is sort of shocking to note how little the lawyers at some of these companies know about these agreements; they tend to take a complete backseat to us and defer to our opinion.

And that is basically it. There are some other things you’ll need to look into, including Dodd-Frank and CFTC. For some reason, people tend to get scared at the word derivatives because they don’t really understand how it works. The agreements are pretty straightforward (compared to a Credit Agreement, at least), and after a while you know where to look. It’s an easy way to add value if you are ever considering going in house, and it’s never as time sensitive or hectic as some of the other corporate areas.

If you have any specific questions, let me know and I’ll shoot you a direct message.

Aight, it's 12:30am and I need to write something to keep myself awake before getting back to reviewing interrogatory responses for a meet and confer tomorrow. First-year at a lit boutique.

The below is not a real day, but it's sort of a hobbled-together version of what a normal-ish day looks like.

8:00am: Wake up. Got around five hours of sleep because I was finishing up a summary of a document review project that me and a contract attorney have been working on for the past week. I have 15 emails waiting for me because a) I haven't bothered to turn off the 6 Law360 emails I signed up for when I started a few months ago, and b) the partners on my team wake up at 5am and send out emails with various beginning-of-the-day questions to be handled as soon as the rest of the team is online. I eat breakfast at my home desk--buying an extra laptop dock for home has turned out to be a lifesaver--while running down these answers, stuff like, "someone find me what opposing counsel said when the court asked X at our last status conference," or "please draft me an email response to this question from MDL co-counsel."

8:45-9:30: shower and commute

9:30-10:00: get into the office. Brief chat with secretary and office neighbors. Finish running down morning questions from partners, find out the other associate on the team was working on the same one I was. We both send out the same email within the same minute. Whoops.

10:00-10:30: Read blogs, Reddit. Find an album I feel like listening to for morning work.

10:30-12:00: Partner on Case 1 has finally turned around revisions to the motion I drafted last week. I enter all their edits and proof for grammar. Spend some time finding loose case support for a couple points of law they want to add. I only oppose one point they want to make--the case support just isn't there, and I think it'll give opposing counsel a soft target on reply. Sometimes I'm successful in resisting these kinds of edits but this time I'll probably give in on the next round of edits if they still want to add the point. Our filing is in four days, so we'll have a few more days of me and partner going back and forth on phrasing and arguments before sending to the client and wrapping up the filing. I continue to be surprised that partner gives a crap about what I have to say in terms of our strategy on this motion.

12:00-12:30: More reddit and blogs while eating lunch.

12:30-1:00: Prepare for 1pm weekly team meeting on Case 2. Case 1 has been eating my time for the last week and I have not made progress on all my tasks. Still, I update the agenda and circulate it to the team.

1:00-2:00: Weekly team meeting. It goes well. We talk about the tasks that got completed and I'm able to give timelines for those that aren't done yet. Settlement seems to be inching closer, and we make fun of opposing counsel for the last ten minutes. They are goobers. Dealing with them is the lone solace I have when I feel like the work I'm doing is total shit, which is 90% of the time -- it's at least better than that.

Fumble around with Casemap/Relativity as I still have no real idea how to use either

6:30: Commute home. I pretty much always stay at the office until 6:30-7:00 to dodge the worst of the commute; thankfully, it's not one of those firms where everyone is expected to be in the office until 10pm or later every night. Partners on both Case 1 and Case 2 have kids, so evening is usually a quiet period as they're doing stuff with family. Hang out and clean up around the apartment, and go for a quick run.

8:00-9:00: Partner on case 1 has taken another look at the motion draft and wants a clean version to send to Bigger Partner. I enter their changes and proofread. They backed off on the one point I argued against, so I take it out--yay. They added some adverbial language I'm not a fan of, but given the nature of the request I'm not going to fight it for now. I'll probably try to edit this out when we trim for word count later on.

9:00-10:12: Watch netflix with a watchful eye for the red light of the blackberry

10:13-1:00: Couple emails from senior associate on Case 2. Ok, I'll prioritize finishing up our strategy document by tomorrow morning. We were originally going to get this out three days from now, so I haven't started. Work until I hit the point where I'm just not doing useful work anymore. Set an alarm for 6:30 to get some extra work in on it in the morning. Sleep.

Rinse and repeat. I enjoy the job overall so far. ~700 billable through the end of March. Could do less of that, but c'est la vie.

Anonymous User wrote:Aight, it's 12:30am and I need to write something to keep myself awake before getting back to reviewing interrogatory responses for a meet and confer tomorrow. First-year at a lit boutique.

The below is not a real day, but it's sort of a hobbled-together version of what a normal-ish day looks like.

8:00am: Wake up. Got around five hours of sleep because I was finishing up a summary of a document review project that me and a contract attorney have been working on for the past week. I have 15 emails waiting for me because a) I haven't bothered to turn off the 6 Law360 emails I signed up for when I started a few months ago, and b) the partners on my team wake up at 5am and send out emails with various beginning-of-the-day questions to be handled as soon as the rest of the team is online. I eat breakfast at my home desk--buying an extra laptop dock for home has turned out to be a lifesaver--while running down these answers, stuff like, "someone find me what opposing counsel said when the court asked X at our last status conference," or "please draft me an email response to this question from MDL co-counsel."

8:45-9:30: shower and commute

9:30-10:00: get into the office. Brief chat with secretary and office neighbors. Finish running down morning questions from partners, find out the other associate on the team was working on the same one I was. We both send out the same email within the same minute. Whoops.

10:00-10:30: Read blogs, Reddit. Find an album I feel like listening to for morning work.

10:30-12:00: Partner on Case 1 has finally turned around revisions to the motion I drafted last week. I enter all their edits and proof for grammar. Spend some time finding loose case support for a couple points of law they want to add. I only oppose one point they want to make--the case support just isn't there, and I think it'll give opposing counsel a soft target on reply. Sometimes I'm successful in resisting these kinds of edits but this time I'll probably give in on the next round of edits if they still want to add the point. Our filing is in four days, so we'll have a few more days of me and partner going back and forth on phrasing and arguments before sending to the client and wrapping up the filing. I continue to be surprised that partner gives a crap about what I have to say in terms of our strategy on this motion.

12:00-12:30: More reddit and blogs while eating lunch.

12:30-1:00: Prepare for 1pm weekly team meeting on Case 2. Case 1 has been eating my time for the last week and I have not made progress on all my tasks. Still, I update the agenda and circulate it to the team.

1:00-2:00: Weekly team meeting. It goes well. We talk about the tasks that got completed and I'm able to give timelines for those that aren't done yet. Settlement seems to be inching closer, and we make fun of opposing counsel for the last ten minutes. They are goobers. Dealing with them is the lone solace I have when I feel like the work I'm doing is total shit, which is 90% of the time -- it's at least better than that.

Fumble around with Casemap/Relativity as I still have no real idea how to use either

6:30: Commute home. I pretty much always stay at the office until 6:30-7:00 to dodge the worst of the commute; thankfully, it's not one of those firms where everyone is expected to be in the office until 10pm or later every night. Partners on both Case 1 and Case 2 have kids, so evening is usually a quiet period as they're doing stuff with family. Hang out and clean up around the apartment, and go for a quick run.

8:00-9:00: Partner on case 1 has taken another look at the motion draft and wants a clean version to send to Bigger Partner. I enter their changes and proofread. They backed off on the one point I argued against, so I take it out--yay. They added some adverbial language I'm not a fan of, but given the nature of the request I'm not going to fight it for now. I'll probably try to edit this out when we trim for word count later on.

9:00-10:12: Watch netflix with a watchful eye for the red light of the blackberry

10:13-1:00: Couple emails from senior associate on Case 2. Ok, I'll prioritize finishing up our strategy document by tomorrow morning. We were originally going to get this out three days from now, so I haven't started. Work until I hit the point where I'm just not doing useful work anymore. Set an alarm for 6:30 to get some extra work in on it in the morning. Sleep.

Rinse and repeat. I enjoy the job overall so far. ~700 billable through the end of March. Could do less of that, but c'est la vie.

Thanks for sharing!

Is this your first job or did you work at a firm or something previously? Basically, just curious about your path to the lit boutique.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm an M&A and venture capital lawyer. Can describe the latter in more detail in a separate post when I have time, but this post is devoted to the former. <snip>

An M&A, securities law attorney here, too -- nicely done!!

M&A is super exciting at times and exhilarating when you finally sign/close a major deal, but you would have to sacrifice a lot as Anon describes above. It's often feast or famine -- work 100 billable hours one week and work 20 the next; and it's hard to plan anything in your private life. But if you want to know how to really negotiate, there is no better way than to become an M&A lawyer IMHO. It's a field where your substantive knowledge of the law is much less crucial than in other (regulated) fields -- but you have to "see around the corners" and have enough judgment to know what's really important and what's not (perhaps the most difficult thing as a lawyer -- judgment). You have to be able to think on your feet, and have to bluff, scream, cajole and beg sometimes. lol

Believe it or not, there is a lot of camaraderie with the clients (on BOTH SIDES) and the opposing counsel (most of the time). Why? Because when they are doing a deal, BOTH SIDES are doing it because they think the deal would be a win-win -- that's why you merge with or acquire someone. Also, an acquisition or merger usually means that the parties are in it together for some time. Of course, the relationship can sour down the road (or even before signing), but everyone is shaking hands and high fiving with a big smile when the deal is signed or closes. I really enjoy that aspect. Can't imagine being a litigator in a zero sum game.

Story Time: I remember working on a major public company deal as a first year. All the orthodox Jewish lawyers running the deal couldn't work over the weekend because of Sabbath, and I was the only idiot working in the office when the assigning partner was roaming the hall. Needless to say, I was drafted. For the next 65 hours or so, I slept about 1.5 hours on the office chair. Since they couldn't reach anyone else, literally 15 opposing lawyers, 7 specialty lawyers on our side, 3 in-house counsel on our side, and 4 in-house lawyers on the other side, all kept calling me non-stop. I had not worked on this deal at all, so I had no idea how to deal with their million questions or requests.

Mercifully, Saturday, after sundown, the experienced lawyers emerged from Sabbath and drafted all the complicated provisions on termination and breakup fee in an hour while I had spun my wheel for way longer than that trying to do it myself . . . . very badly. After the deal was signed, I escaped from the office as fast I could but couldn't drive home in my car because my eyes could not take the sunlight; they would involuntarily close and tear up. I had been in indoors the entire 65 hours; no large windows. The deal was given prime real estate in the following day's NY Law Journal, but the spelling of my name was butchered. Good times. lol.

Under normal circumstances, they should let you run a smaller deal (say <$25M) on your own by the end of your second or beginning of your third year. That's when you graduate from grunt work and it gets really fun, but also really busy and stressful.

Mickfromgm wrote:Believe it or not, there is a lot of camaraderie with the clients (on BOTH SIDES) and the opposing counsel (most of the time). Why? Because when they are doing a deal, BOTH SIDES are doing it because they think the deal would be a win-win -- that's why you merge with or acquire someone. Also, an acquisition or merger usually means that the parties are in it together for some time. Of course, the relationship can sour down the road (or even before signing), but everyone is shaking hands and high fiving with a big smile when the deal is signed or closes.

Does the headline number's size correspond to the number of lines you snort before high fiving everyone at the closing dinner?

Mickfromgm wrote:Believe it or not, there is a lot of camaraderie with the clients (on BOTH SIDES) and the opposing counsel (most of the time). Why? Because when they are doing a deal, BOTH SIDES are doing it because they think the deal would be a win-win -- that's why you merge with or acquire someone. Also, an acquisition or merger usually means that the parties are in it together for some time. Of course, the relationship can sour down the road (or even before signing), but everyone is shaking hands and high fiving with a big smile when the deal is signed or closes.

Does the headline number's size correspond to the number of lines you snort before high fiving everyone at the closing dinner?

I dunno, I ran with the crystal meth crowd back then. . .

Last edited by Mickfromgm on Thu May 04, 2017 7:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mickfromgm wrote:Believe it or not, there is a lot of camaraderie with the clients (on BOTH SIDES) and the opposing counsel (most of the time). Why? Because when they are doing a deal, BOTH SIDES are doing it because they think the deal would be a win-win -- that's why you merge with or acquire someone. Also, an acquisition or merger usually means that the parties are in it together for some time. Of course, the relationship can sour down the road (or even before signing), but everyone is shaking hands and high fiving with a big smile when the deal is signed or closes.

Does the headline number's size correspond to the number of lines you snort before high fiving everyone at the closing dinner?

6:30: wake up; make breakfast, pack my lunch, and look decent8:00: get to work; after the typical morning chit chat, begin the long slog of reviewing case files on a computer screen.12:00: break for lunch; the head and eye pains from staring at the computer screen haven't started yet, but I can feel the strain.12:45: back to reviewing again or start writing on the case.2:00: head starts to hurt now; I can see my eyes red in the bathroom mirror. I have to get up and drink water every 45 minutes to relieve the pain.5:00: review my work product and turn in anything completed to my supervisor.5:45: arrive home light-headed and with a throbbing headache; this is relieved with evening exercise and tea.

It's hardly the longest day you can have. It's the sedentary work involving looking at a screen for hours and hours that gets me. Ugh.

i got lucky. i previously held a stressful job, but i've been with my current firm for about a year and it has been great.

i stroll into the office at 9:45-ish. on a typical day, i'll play madden mobile for an hour, i'll check in on my dating apps for about half an hour, i take an hour lunch, and i'll chit chat with my co-workers for about a half hour/an hour.

the rest of the time, i'll be on the phone making any necessary calls (opposing counsel or clients), sending out discovery, writing motions, or doing legal research. i'll be in mediation about once every 1-2 months, and i have a court hearing about once every month or two. i work weekends about once or twice every three months (mostly if there's a class cert motion).